Category Archives: Drama

Netflix Movie Review: Straw

Posted on by • Posted in Bank Robber, Drama, Homelessness • Tagged , , • Leave a comment

The new Tyler Perry Netflix movie “Straw” captures, better than almost any other movie I have seen, the life of a single mother Janiyah Wiltkinson, played by Taraji P. Henson, is like watching a slow-moving car wreck. Janiyah has two horrible jobs, one as a cashier in a rundown food store, with a rude, cruel boss who treats her like garbage.

Janiyah is about to lose her apartment to eviction, and her 8-year-old daughter is sick and needs medicine that she cannot afford. Janiyah’s landlord couldn’t care less about her disastrous life and refuses to give her more time to pay her rent, evicting her despite her pleading for more time – one of this movie’s singularly horrific moments. Later in this depressing story, Janiyah even has her car towed because her registration was not renewed. Life sometimes works this way for far too many of us, when it seems that everything is going wrong at the same time. How many millions in the world, through no fault of their own, fall into a life this dire and depressing?

The acting of Taraji P. Henson is outstanding, as good as her performance nine years ago in the great film “Hidden Figures” (2016). Sherri Shepherd is also outstanding as an empathetic bank executive, Nicole, who tries to help Janiyah when circumstances spiral out of control. There are some typical Tyler Perry moments in this story that do not seem to hold water, and some standard Perry movie misdirection and trickery at the end, but overall, this is a well-told story with great acting about what can happen to anyone when circumstances out of our control ruin our lives.

Tyler Perry has been one of those hard-working screenwriters and directors who has taken more than his share of bad hits over the years from several critics. This time around, few can argue that Straw is one of the best movies he has ever produced. I give this movie a solid 95% recommendation.

Movie Review: Final Destination: Bloodlines

Posted on by • Posted in Drama, Horror • Tagged • Leave a comment

The consensus of the overwhelming number of opinions is that the concept behind the six Final Destination movies is absurd – “death finds revenge on groups of people who cheated, violent death”.

Regardless, no one can argue about the high-quality special effects that show the horrific deaths of many people in these films. One cannot help but be impressed with the ideas and creativity behind the deaths and the chain reaction of events that cause these extremely violent scenes.

The sixth installment of the Final Destination franchise, “Final Destination: Bloodlines”, starts in a high-rise luxury restaurant tower where the overloaded top floor, where people are dancing, starts a series of events that cause the collapse of the building and the horrendous, violent death of everybody in the restaurant. This time around, the premonition that prevents tragedy is different, now recurring in the mind of the great-granddaughter of the woman who saved many lives some fifty years earlier in the high-rise tower.

The rest of this story follows the Final Destination paradigm where death finds revenge (in order) of all the people whose lives were saved, this time around killing all of the descendants of the people whose lives were saved fifty years earlier, because they were not supposed to be born – a new insane addition to the Final Destination story. It is all very stupid, but saved in each movie by the creativity and incredible special effects.

While this is a very good horror movie, the 92% Rotten Tomatoes concensus is a bit too high, with my rating 85% and a recommendation mostly for fans of the six Final Destination movies.

Movie Review: The Penguin Lessons

Posted on by • Posted in Drama • Tagged , • Leave a comment

The new movie “The Penguin Lessons” is another recent movie that is about what happened in Argentina during the years 1976-1983, known as the “Dirty War”, where as many as 30,000 citizens were arrested and then disappeared (in some cases by dropping them from a plane into the Atlantic Ocean). The Argentinian government targeted any person even loosely connected to any movement that might be considered in opposition to the government.

In the case of The Penguin Lessons, the story of a Penguin rescued from an oil spill by a high school English teacher Tom Michell, played by Steve Coogan happened during the time of the Dirty War. At first, Tom tries to get rid of the Pengiun by returning him to the ocean, but soon both Tom and the Pengiun realize that they have become friends. Over time Tom brings the Pengiun into this English class, so the boys he is teaching will pay more attention, with a side effect of the nonstop cruel bullying of one overweight boy eliminated just by the presence of the Pengiun.

The other story within this very good film is about a young woman, who works as a maid for the school is taken away from her family leading Tom Michell to risk his life trying to save her from her government kidnappers.

This story has several moments of humor and some emotional highs and lows and overall this is a heartwarming story about the value of animals and their effect on humans, very well told.

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings for The Penguin Lessons are a solid 84% with a very high audience rating of 94% that I agree with and highly recommend this film.